Higher Education: Affordability and Quality

Baroness Cash Excerpts

Thursday 2nd July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Cash (Con)]

My Lords, what a superb debate the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, has secured. I thank all noble Lords this afternoon for their excellent and informed contributions. I feel the least academically qualified in the House to speak among so many doctorates, master’s and prestigious holders of positions at some of the universities to which we have referred. What I have heard this afternoon is that where our higher education is good, it is really good—world-beating. Where it is not so good, there are so many factors to consider that what we need—as the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, has said this afternoon—is a lot more data to understand and dig into where it is going wrong.

We on these Benches welcome the work the Government are doing on apprenticeships. But we also believe that we need more data on whether those apprenticeships will provide fair outcomes for those who participate, in the same way that the IFS has undertaken an exercise on university degrees. We need to think about the lower-value courses. I take on board the point the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, made about the creative arts. I spoke during a Question on history master’s degrees and made very clear my position: that the humanities are essential to the health of our nation and our future intellectual vigour. But we need to understand which of those creative arts courses are not performing. Again, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, that perhaps there is more data to be collated by the Government. I invite the Minister to think about this—if not today, when so many other points have been raised, then on another occasion. We have to find a way of analysing some of those creative arts subjects, which really are not coming up to scratch for the students who are spending money and accruing a lot of debt to take part in them.

The noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, made some very important comments about social mobility and the value of education for children; when their parents are educated, that is very important for their outcomes. I declare an interest as the founder of a behavioural science business, MindGym, but also of its philanthropic arm, Parent Gym. We have always looked at what education means for families overall, and we should not neglect that.

However, as has been made clear this afternoon, we need to think about how to resolve the tension between individual aspiration and what we as a country can aspire to. There is some tension there, because in funding higher education and the courses students take, we need to think about our growth strategy, a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Londesborough. How we fund all of this, and how we create employment at the end of it, is crucial; otherwise, it is not sustainable. I was alarmed to hear the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, refer to a dropping off of research. I had a beautiful passage prepared about our current research—I am now ad-libbing. I would be very grateful if the noble Lord shared that information, because I would hate to see our research dropping off. It is very important to continue to ensure that our universities are incentivised to invest in research, and that the Government look at how to encourage this.

The previous Government looked hard at how we build our economy and grow our future as a nation globally using our universities. In 2023, we backed the reform of how well universities share their research through the independent review of university spin-out companies, as some noble Lords may recall. It did work. The UK’s spin-out value has nearly tripled since 2020, second only to the US. In Cambridge alone, the cluster of firms around the university, known as Silicon Fen, now numbers over 5,000 and turns over more than £18 billion a year. The barrier now, according to the UKRI, is speed and early capital, and I urge the Government to build on the previous study and to act on that.

The other thing is that, whereas American colleges build lasting relationships with employers, sometimes securing places for their own graduates in different firms with places held specifically for their institutions, British universities do not have that culture or tradition to the same extent. It should become a measure of performance and not an afterthought. There are ways of measuring quality that benefit both the nation’s economy and individual students on outcomes.

I would caveat the recruitment of international students—bringing more international students here—with making sure that they do not lean on our loan system. The displacement and cost identified by the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, are serious. We already have an employment crisis for our graduates which needs to be addressed, and we cannot fund and subsidise international students at the cost of our own.

I support the case made today for minimum entry standards and for a cap on the proportion of firsts at any institution—both are modest, sensible steps. I also agree with much that was said by the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, and the noble Lords, Lord Verdirame and Lord Biggar, about the culture at our universities; I will come back to that in a moment.

I want to say briefly—the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, touched on this—that AI could serve us so much better than it is currently doing. On this, I urge the Government, perhaps more than anything else, to consider that the cost-saving potential of the proper harnessing of AI is huge, not only in how universities deploy teaching and learning for students but in the efficiencies of how they run. The diagnostic technology now is incredible, and we have seen it used in the workforce quite regularly. We see it used in the NHS. This could be deployed across higher education to much greater effect, removing the managerial class, which so often creates the cultural problems and difficulties identified so well by the noble Lord, Lord Verdirame.

We have to come back, I am afraid, to the culture point, because without the muscular defence of liberal education, as the noble Lord, Lord Biggar, so beautifully put it, none of this is really of any value to us as a society or for the individual students. I am very proud that the Conservatives introduced the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023, but I am sorry that it was necessary to do it because of the nature and extent of cancel culture across our campuses. Vice-chancellors must be ready to confront cancel culture and insist on vigorous debate as a measure of the quality of an institution. I urge the Government to look at this more carefully so that we are restoring the value of a degree by restoring the confidence in the institutions that award it.

The year after the publication of John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty, in an Oxford museum in 1860, Bishop Wilberforce and Thomas Huxley argued out the theory of evolution in public before a packed hall. It is hard for us to imagine now how absolutely controversial that was—it was one of the great contests in the history of science, won by argument and not by cancellation or silence. Too many higher education institutions today appear to struggle with that concept. I urge the Minister to address this, along with the many other issues on her desk, as she moves forward.

University Student Finance

Baroness Cash Excerpts

Tuesday 30th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

We acknowledge the challenges that are facing higher education providers. While the providers are independent of government and responsible for managing their finances, it is this Government who have acted to secure a financial future for our world-leading higher education sector. We have increased tuition fee caps in line with forecast inflation for 2026-27 and 2027-28. We appointed Professor Edward Peck as chair of the Office for Students. He is working to strengthen its commitment to financial sustainability. The tuition fee increase brings into the sector an additional £6 billion over the next few years. Given that greater financial stability for the sector, we expect providers to work with their staff to develop sustainable models that retain talent and expertise and provide stability for the workforce and the institution.

[Baroness Cash (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the Minister’s indications in response to questions so far. However, three months on from her first announcement about poor-value courses, we are still waiting for the information that is needed for students to assess which courses they should avoid before they are saddled with lifetime debt. The best advice seems to be to choose carefully, but some applicants are choosing now. Can the Minister give us some idea of when there will be better data available?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I am sure that the noble Baroness will have seen the data last week from the IFS using LEO data. It identifies those courses which are most likely to bring a positive return for students. It is worth remembering that, after the repayment of student debt, the majority of students will receive throughout their lifetime a positive return from going to university. The information published last week was clear about which courses would be less likely to provide that positive return. That does not mean that there may be no reasons for taking those courses, but it is information that students can use. Also, through Discover Uni and working with UCAS, we will ensure that this information is more easily available to students when they are making decisions, as the noble Baroness says.

Master’s Level History Scholarships

Baroness Cash Excerpts

Monday 22nd June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

It is important, first, to ensure the financial sustainability of our higher education sector, which this Government have taken action to do by increasing the maximum tuition fee cap. It is also important, as we set out in our White Paper, that universities are able to think carefully about what they want to specialise in and the way in which they collaborate—something that has not happened enough in our higher education sector—to maintain access to important subjects such as history and humanities. In doing that, we will make it more likely that access to these important subjects can be maintained for students at all levels.

[Baroness Cash (Con)]

My Lords, I join from these Benches in congratulating noble Lord, Lord Barber of Chittlehampton, on all his work to support the study of history. Higher education resources, however, are under strain, and the IFS has reported independently that some courses have persistently poor outcomes and very high student loan write-off, of up to 70%—not history, but some other creative courses. What steps will the Minister take to ensure any future cuts are made first to those courses, rather than to the core disciplines and humanities, such as history?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I am sure the noble Baroness will be very pleased to know that we made an announcement this morning—which, for some unknown reason, did not get quite the attention I would have hoped—precisely about her point. For a vast majority of students, going to university is worth while for their learning and lifetime earnings, but there are some courses which are not providing that opportunity. We have already enabled the Office for Students to investigate and challenge where provision is not of a high enough quality; we will link any future increase in tuition fees to quality and we will take further action to enable the Office for Students to limit the availability of courses which are not providing students with what they deserve in the future. We will have more to say about that when, perhaps, more people are listening.

Children: Physical Punishment

Baroness Cash Excerpts

Tuesday 16th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

We have looked, for example, at the Welsh report on the implementation of the abolition of the defence of reasonable punishment in Wales. As I said, the report is on the implementation of the law rather than the outcomes achieved by it. It highlights the importance of professional confidence, inter-agency collaboration and widely available parenting support. As I have already identified, those are all things in which we are investing considerable amounts of money in England and where we have taken action through legislation to transform the social care system so as to prioritise them.

[Baroness Cash (Con)]

My Lords, it would be wrong to speak today of physical punishment without raising the evil murder of the baby Preston Davey. As the Minister knows, we on the Conservative Benches welcome her structural reforms to social care, but there is still a gap. As the Munro inquiry and repeated case reviews have found, the assumptions, biases and culture of individual agency workers are still a major problem. These need to be addressed so that individuals will act to protect children without fear or favour. How does the Minister propose to address these issues?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is right to draw attention to that terrible case, and to the requirement, whenever we are faced with tragedies such as that, to learn the right lessons about how we need to reform the system. On her particular point about workers, one of the ways that we improve the way in which social workers and others, whether agency or otherwise, work is to increase their capacity, to focus them, as we are doing, on neglect and abuse, and to improve their training. We will continue to do that while, of course, learning the lessons from tragedies such as the one that she has identified today.

School Admissions: Selective Inclusion

Baroness Cash Excerpts

Monday 8th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I am not sure I would characterise it as an aggressive approach, but it is certainly a key element of the Government’s SEND reform that we ensure children get the right support, whether in their early years setting, their school or their college. That is why we are investing in new training for all staff, better buildings and equipment, and will make sure that every setting has access to expert professional support when it is needed. An inclusive education system for all children and young people requires a strong universal offer, built on high-quality adaptive teaching and early effective support. We will equip and empower mainstream settings to become inclusive by design and to remove commonly occurring barriers to learning. We will invest £4 billion more over the next three years to ensure that happens.

[Baroness Cash (Con)]

My Lords, the OECD PISA survey looks at whether the school that children attended makes a difference to their attainment. Contrary to some of the assumptions underlying the Sutton Trust report, it makes less difference which school you attend here in the UK than in many other countries; we are below average, and that is a good thing. Does the Minister therefore acknowledge that forcing every school to fit one profile risks further constraining parent choice, with very little benefit to the children?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I welcome the noble Baroness to her new role, and I am looking forward to working with her. The answer to ensuring that parents have the choice they want and deserve is to enable all schools to be the type of good schools that any of us who have or have had children would want our children to go to. That means ensuring that we have more teachers in our schools, which we are focused on; ensuring that all schools follow a revised national curriculum; and investing properly in them. These are all things that this Government have focused on, and we will continue to do so to ensure that every parent has the choice of a good school for their child.

Children’s Social Care: Enduring Relationships Strategy

Baroness Cash Excerpts

Monday 8th June 2026 Lords Chamber

The most important thing for us in life is our relationships. The state often finds it hard to put itself at the service of building these loving relationships. In fact, too often it blocks or weakens them. That changes today by making one thing very clear: the purpose of our care system, above all else, is to build enduring loving relationships. I commend this Statement to the House”.

[Baroness Cash (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for bringing this Statement to the House and for her kind words to me earlier. I look forward to working constructively with her in the coming months, in the interests of all children and young people.

We on the Conservative Benches welcome this Statement. Indeed, it was the previous Conservative Government who commissioned the review by Josh MacAlister on which this Government’s social care strategy is based. Children who enter care have often experienced circumstances too horrible for us to imagine. As they enter adulthood, as the report reminds us, they report much higher levels of loneliness and isolation, often lacking a single loving or supportive relationship. It is now well established by the evidence that higher numbers of adverse childhood experiences correlate with poorer life and health outcomes, so we will support, where possible, reforms to improve the care system.

I have some questions today. I particularly welcome the Minister’s focus on kinship care, but I wish to raise some points about the target of 10,000 new foster places—a laudable and necessary target. Surely some proportion of this is more easily achieved through the family. Currently, the proportion of fostering households through kinship care is just 20%, but finding foster carers among a child’s kin could be the surest and most efficient way of getting children into a placement in which they already feel a sense of safety and belonging. The biggest barrier is qualifying as foster carers, even though there are significant advantages to a child which might justify a less than perfect score. This would of course have to be done without compromising safeguarding, but it must merit further exploration. Will the Minister commit to revisiting this in this Session?

We recommend the expansion of regional care co-operatives, particularly to encompass children currently on, or at risk of, a deprivation of liberty order. However, I am concerned about the funding of these RCCs. The two RCC pathfinders in Greater Manchester and the south-east received £3.46 million in programme funding and £5 million in capital funding between them. The Government’s paper cites over £10 million to support the expansion of the six new RCCs. Unless I have misunderstood, that is a large discrepancy in per-RCC terms. Can the Minister tell the House whether she believes that this funding will be enough for all the new co-operatives or whether she expects more to be announced in the future?

We welcome the Minister’s resolution to secure the best possible outcome for care leavers, who too often, as I have said, have not a single enduring relationship in their lives. But there are some unanswered questions about how the new enduring relationship metric will be applied, and I would be very grateful for more information from the Minister. Will support for those who score lower be increased? What form will that support take? Will it allow for early intervention before those identified vulnerable individuals have left care? More information on all this would be very welcome. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

[Lord Mohammed of Tinsley (LD)]

My Lords, I also welcome the Statement. It is important that we in this House send a strong message to young people in care that we are on their side. I know that on many occasions my noble friend Lord Purvis, who has just left his place here, has referred to those young people as having the richest parents—the corporate parents of the state—but often the state, particularly at the local level, has not been there to support them, so we welcome this enduring relationships strategy for children in social care. We have long believed that every child, no matter where they are and what their circumstances are, deserves the best start in life. That is what we want for our children. We the state, at both a national level and a local level, are the corporate parents, and if that is good enough for our own children, it should be good enough for the children under our responsibility.

We have long advocated for children in care because they have often been the ones who are overlooked, particularly those who reach adulthood but clearly still have issues. This overlaps with the debate that I am sure we will have following the Milburn review on NEETs, because those who have been in care are often overrepresented as NEETs. I am sure I will come back to that topic at a later date.

For too long, we have talked about the fact that some young people live in broken relationships. I pay tribute to my noble friend Lady Tyler, who wanted to be here but could not, because she has long campaigned for children. Often, one sibling is in care and the other is not. Maintaining that relationship is something for which she has campaigned for many years. I thank the Minister for her efforts to support the efforts of my noble friend, so that we were able to get that into the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act in the last Session of Parliament. That was an important change in the law and guaranteed that children in care are supported to stay in contact with their brothers and sisters. We want to make that upbringing closely mirrored to the ones that we all had and that, for example, my children are having.

Kinship care has a vital role in society. So often, that support is something that holds families together, and we have long called for the Government to support it financially. While they are there to support foster carers, we feel that kinship carers should also be better financially supported. Although we support the Government’s intentions, we must remind them that kinship carers still lack financial support. We tried to fix that during the passage of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act, but on that occasion we did not succeed.

I have a couple of questions for the Minister. The Government mention a new financial allowance pilot for kinship carers. Will the Minister explain why the Government did not support the kinship care amendment to the Bill in the last Session? Similarly, the Government state that their goal is to shift children’s social care towards stronger families and stable homes, and that is welcome. But when a relative or close family friend willing to take on a child is located, they often face immense financial barriers. When will the Government guarantee financial support for kinship carers on a par with that for foster carers?

Equality and Human Rights Commission: Code of Practice

Baroness Cash Excerpts

Monday 19th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

It is for the independent commission to consult on and put forward the code to the Minister, as it has done. The full code, following the most recent judgment, was received on 3 September by the department. It is important that it is then properly reviewed. As I have outlined previously, various elements must take place; for example, consultation with the devolved Administrations. Then it is the Minister’s responsibility, if satisfied with that code, to lay it before the House under the process set out in the Equality Act.

[Baroness Cash (Con)]

We have had a number of Questions now on this matter so it would be very helpful to the House if the Minister could finally provide a timetable to indicate when we might have this laid before Parliament.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I have been pretty clear every time that I have answered. People might not like the answer. But ensuring that what is laid before Parliament is legally defensible will enable those who need the protection of this code and of the Equality Act to receive it without us being bogged down in lengthy legal proceedings. I think that is a sensible thing for any Government to be spending a bit of time on getting right.